31 October 2013

In Sept it was exciting for our GemStone Media team (Ted and Jim) to see how God is at work in the life Jenni as we produced this brief video.

Life is a journey and Jenni shares the difficult challenges that she's experienced along her life's path. God's faithful hand has brought healing and hope into Jenni's life as she sets her direction to follow Him.

Click on the link below to see how God is has been at work in Jenni's life:

25 October 2013

In July, GemStone Media designed the 2013 annual
conference program and screen slides to highlight this year's conference theme: Generations: Imprint the Future. The idea behind the theme is that as churches are being formed, the DNA for reproduction is already there from the beginning.

21 October 2013

One of the short film parables that GemStone Media recently shot in Central Asia was the story of The Lost Coin from Luke 15:8-8. To make this parable more culturally relevant for the people there, we wrote the script as “The Lost Jewel.” In just a few short days at this breathtaking location, we shot the film using some wonderful local people as actors. We’re in post-production on this now ... Stay tuned!

In August, Jim and Walt went on an adventure in Central Asia. In
partnership with another missions agency, they set out to retell the
parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:3-7) contextualized for a minority language group
who are isolated up in mountains for much of the year. Getting there was quite a challenge.

Single-lane road

The "production truck"

Walt shares: "To reach the village where we stayed, we had to drive
through the mountains for 9 hours on a dangerous single-lane road, and
then hike on foot for 3.5 hours. All our equipment was carried by
donkeys."

Our coworker Walt put this together from an interview and video shots Jim and Sara filmed last fall, while working on the GEM Tour de France video. It's a great vision for why prayer for France is so important.

During his HMA year in the States, GemStone's Ted Cox produced this 20 minute short film to stimulate small group discussions. Based on Luke 10:25-37, the film helps us to more deeply engage with the cultural implications of Jesus words.

Once again, the amazing Jeremiah Brewer stepped in to provide the music for us.

This tool is freely available for your church or small group. We encourage you to check it out.

Last April, Jim and Sara shot a music video with a German singer/songwriter/pianist from Frankfurt named Sten Ruhe. He grew up in East Germany behind the Berlin Wall as an atheist. Now that he has experienced God’s saving grace in his life, he desires to reach other Germans with the timeless message of the power of the Cross. Sten knows no English whatsoever, so the whole filming project was done in German!

GEM’s outreach next summer is called the ‘7x7 Tour de France Project.’ ‘7x7’ stands for multiple teams of around 7 people per team, whom we’re inviting to come and serve in one of 7 cities along the Tour de France bike route in France, being involved in one of 7 different ministry opportunities.

It’s very encouraging to hear that already the videos are having a very positive impact. French churches who weren’t originally sure about getting involved have now caught the vision after seeing the videos! They are fully on-board with GEM’s plans for the summer outreach in France, even planning events and renting spaces in preparation for teams to come. And the same encouraging vision-casting is happening with churches in North America too. It’s so great to see our work bearing fruit. Thank you so much for partnership with us! We are truly grateful for you.

In July of 2012, Ted Cox was in Cologne shooting a quick prayer video for the team there. Exciting things continue to happen in Cologne, and it's great to be a part of mobilizing prayer to reach this strategic city.

Jim and Sara Meyer represented GemStone at the Connect 2012 media conference, in Madrid, Spain in April of 2012. Sara shares: "It was a really encouraging, great networking time for us. We enjoyed spending time with the conference hosts, Jerry & Gwen Gibson and the conference speaker Phil Cooke and his wife Kathleen. Attendees were pastors, ministry leaders and media professionals from a dozen or so different countries.

We led a workshop on The Power of Storytelling, which was attended by people from Croatia, Romania, France, Spain, Burkina Faso, Belgium and the U.S. People from many of these countries are wanting to translate and use the videos we produce in their ministry contexts – in the French-speaking world, Norway, Spain – including the head of a Spanish TV station geared to young people."

The headline basically says “What if what we think is true is false?” It is a 3-week opportunity for people to see these posters/billboards, become intrigued, go to the web site using the QR code or sending an SMS message, learn more about the gospel, and say that they would like to be contacted to receive more information and go through a Bible correspondence course. We’ve heard that the ministry there is getting a handful of responses already in just the first few days.

Here are a few photos on-site that have been taken ... Please pray that as thousands of people see them, God will tug on their hearts – to become curious and want to know more. The ministry there which we have created these posters and billboards for is very excited and anticipating great things!